A Corpus-based Approach To Translational Norms:Sensitive Contents And Interior Monologues In Four Chinese Translated Versions Of Tropic Of Cancer

Since the 1990s,corpus-based translation studies(CTS)has embraced rapid development due to ever-advancing corpus-related technologies.As a result,a growing number of scholars,whose research includes corpora as a crucial part,have begun to devote their wisdom into translational norms and other fields in Translation Studies.Something that is worthy of attention is,however,few research in recent years have further explained or extended the connotation of "pointers" of the concept.The study,therefore,aims to further explore detailed and effective "pointers" in ways that may lead to more "targeted" research in the field.Unlike many other novels,Tropic of Cancer is characterized by large quantities of descriptions on sexual organs as well as unique literary devices like interior monologue,two features that,to a large extent,may bring great impact on its Chinese readers.Hence,it can be assumed that the choice made by translators(whether or not being faithful to the style of the original work)weighs a lot among these readers.On that basis,the study within the framework of "selectivity and exclusion" put forward by Theo Hermans tentatively proposes that sensitive contents and interior monologue can serve as "sub-pointers" of translational norms.The study builds an English-Chinese comparable corpus,in which the novel and its four Chinese translated versions(different in publishing date and place)are covered.While launching overall "scanning" to get data including word/character frequency and average sentence length,the study puts special attention to the two"sub-pointers" above in a bid to describe translational norms of these translated versions so as to unveil reasons behind changes of translational norms,if there are any.The study finds that the "degree of sanitization" of sensitive contents and the average sentence length vary a lot in four translated versions,which can reflect difference in balance of power among these norms.It primarily attests to the effectiveness of these two "sub-pointers".In addition,the study argues that the difference may be attributed to public and social acceptance to sex and ways of literary expression.In addition,the study also intends to introduce methods of building small-sized corpus for those in needs as reference in an attempt to improve their working efficiency and reduce unnecessary input.